There's no place like Home

A traditional saying amongst The Core once the trip starts is "It's good to be back home". This is always said right when we get over there, not when we come back.

As I said before, we've been making this trip for a long time. Camp has evolved over the years, due in part to innovation, and partly due to Bob's virtually unlimited resources. Did I mention he's a bazillionairre? Technically we are indeed camping. We do sleep in tents, all the food is kept in coolers, and your daily consitutional will be done outdoors. Beyond that, however, it can hardly be called roughing it. It takes no less than four full boatloads to get camp down to camp. Now that I think about it, it might be more of a compound...

Every year we bring up some 2x6 boards to make a table for the cooking area. I'm not sure why we do this as the table tops from years past always seem to stay where we leave them. Anyway, once set up, the "kitchen" has 3 tables making a U shape. One of the first things Bob bought was a proper grill for cooking large quantities of food. He had a restaurant grill converted to run on propane, and it has worked flawlessly for 20 years now. It even has a pilot light so you don't have to relight it every time you want to use it. The cooking is a group affair, and no expense is spared on the cuisine. We never eat breakfast before 10:30, and it pretty much always consists of bacon, sausage, eggs, and hotcakes. Lunch is usually not necessary. For this years dinner menu we had:

Steak night (filets, with melted feta cheese)
Prawn night (with mushrooms, sauteed in butter and garlic)
Spaghetti night (yes, the sauce was made not just heated)
Smoked pork chop night (If you've never had one, go to Voget's in Hubbard and get some)
Lobster night (barbequeued, mmmmm)

All fried taters are "blessed" by me with a healthy dose of Tabasco. Garlic bread is made also, with real butter and sliced garlic. Salad, new to the menu this year, was a welcome addition.

BTW- all these foods, when taken to this particular camp site, magically become fat and cholesterol free! Have as much as you like..


When we first started going on this trip it was a 3 day event, so bathing was not much of an issue. As the stay became longer, the need to get the grunge off became overwhelming (especially considering the amount of garlic used in the food). We first tried those 5 gallon shower bags that you set in the sun to heat up. Worked okay, but man what a pain to use. Bob has since devised the system we use now. A hose with a filter on it goes into the river. This is connected to an electric pump that runs off of a car battery. The water is pumped through a propane powered water heater, then goes up the line to a real showerhead that is hung up in a tree. When you turn the shower on, it goes from 0 to "damn that's hot!" in about 2 seconds. It's amazing the difference a little soap and hot water makes..

Jealous yet? Wanna go next year?

Oh yeah, the fishing is awesome too.